NEWS OF 150 YEARS AGO
November/December 1861
From The Missouri Democrat, Friday, December 13, 1861.
Enforcement of “Order No. 24”—Sixty Citizens Specially Honored.
In accordance with General Halleck’s “Order No. 24,” a reliable list has been made of the citizens against whom the charge of disloyalty will unquestionably held, and whom it proposes to tax for the benefit of despoiled and exiled Union citizens. We understand that the list comprises the names of some three hundred St. Louis secessionists, who are men of property, and that the means of these gentlemen will be regarded as a fund to be drawn upon as exigencies shall require. The distinguishing privilege of contributing to raise, in money and goods, the sum of ten thousand dollars, for the Southwest Refugees, has been already assigned to some sixty persons, selected from the three hundred. Each of these sixty will to-day be called upon to hand over the quota assessed upon him. The drafts range from $100 to $400 in each case, and will doubtless be promptly paid, in order to avert the forcible collection of twenty-five per cent, additional. A lively and rather sensational time in certain circles may reasonably be anticipated on the serving, this morning, of the sixty eloquent notices to pay. As to precisely who the thus honored sixty are, we are not at present advised, or we should at once communicate the interesting information, and so prepare them for the trial.
